There is so great a similitude between painting and poetry, that it is no ways surprising, a person, who possessed the latter of these graces in so high a degree, should very easily discover an inclination to the former, which has often the same admirers.  Accordingly we find Mrs. Rowe discover a taste for painting; she attempted to carry her taste into execution, when she had hardly steadiness of hand sufficient to guide the pencil.  Her father perceiving her fondness for this art, was at the expence of a matter to instruct her in it; and she never failed to make it an amusement ’till her death.  Every one acquainted with her writings, and capable of relishing the melifluent flow of her numbers, will naturally suppose, that she had a genius for music, particularly that of a grave and solemn kind, as it was best suited to the grandeur of her sentiments, and the sublimity of her devotion.  But her most prevailing propension was to poetry.  This superior grace was indeed the most favourite employment of her youth, and in her the most distinguished excellence.  So powerful was her genius in this way, that her prose hath all the charms of verse without the fetters; the same fire and elevation; the same richness of imagery, bold figures, and flowing diction.

It appears by a life of Mrs. Rowe, prefixed to the first volume of her miscellaneous works, that in the year 1696, the 22d of her age, a Collection of her Poems on various Occasions was published at the desire of two of her friends, which we suppose did not contain all she had by her, since the ingenious author of the preface, Mrs. Elizabeth Johnson, gives the reader room to hope, that Mrs. Rowe might, in a little while, be prevailed upon to oblige the world with a second part, no way inferior to the former.

Mrs. Rowe’s Paraphrase on the 38th Chapter of Job was written at the request of bishop Kenn, which gained her a great reputation.  She had no other tutor for the French and Italian languages, than the honourable Mr. Thynne, son to the lord viscount Weymouth, and father to the right honourable the countess of Hertford, who willingly took the talk upon himself, and had the pleasure to see his fair scholar improve so fast by his lessons, that in a few months she was able to read Tasso’s Jerusalem with ease.  Her shining merit, with the charms of her person and conversation, had procured her many admirers:  among others, the celebrated Mr. Prior made his addresses to her; so that allowing for the double licence of the poet and the lover, the concluding lines in his Answer to Mrs. Singer’s Pastoral on Love and Friendship, were not without foundation in truth; but Mr. Thomas Rowe, a very ingenious and learned gentleman, was the person destined to fill the arms of this amiable poetess.